Dogs, 2; Bowlingual, 0

Finally, after almost two years of waiting, I bought a Bow-Lingual Dog Translator.  When they first came out they were $100, then $60, then $40, and now they’re only $9.99 so I knew it was in my budget :)  We’ve got two “problem barkers” in the house—Cricket, an incessant yapper, and Dante, an Anatolian shepherd who only barks when he’s being scary, so I thought the Bow-lingual would give us the upper-hand on the dogs’ innermost thoughts. 

Here are the good things about Bow Lingual:  it’s sturdy, the instructions are well thought-out and detailed, it comes with batteries (5 AAA), and it’s just pretty neat with all its little graphics and and buttons.  It’s also just $9.99, don’t forget that part.  The bad things include the fact that the battery compartments are sealed with annoying little Phillips’ head screws, so they’re a pain to remove.  It’s also annoying that while the hand-held receiver/translator unit automatically shuts itself off after a couple of minutes (or goes into a standby mode), the transmitter which attaches to the dog’s collar is all or nothing.  It’s either on or it’s off, so you have to keep that in mind if you want to conserve batteries.

My first experiment was with Dante, who goes into “scary, crazy, tired old man” mode when he wants to go to bed.  He goes out into the middle of the yard and barks and barks, and if I ignore him, he’ll come into the house, plant his feet, and bark like a madman until I put him in his crate.  While he’s always been (mostly) harmless, he’s still alarming when he acts like that (he has a BIG bark), and I hoped Bow-Lingual would shed some light on “the many moods of Dante”.  I put the transmitter on his collar when he’d already started barking and figured he’d go back outside, but no, he just stood inside silently.  I then put him in his crate and sent the little dogs outside, something which gets him all riled up at any time of day, but he didn’t make a single peep.  We pulled out all the stops—Flippy came downstairs wearing scary “headache hat” and Dante was mute, and we even opened the freezer door, something which usually causes him to react as if he’s been set on fire, but HE DIDN’T MAKE A SOUND.

Next, I tried Cricket, who will yap at anything—the cats, Eli, a noise outside, etc.  I had some trouble getting the transmitter on her collar because she’s so small, but I eventually got it attached and waited.  I waited for the barking.  Waited, waited, waited.  Flippy went to pretend she saw something out the window and was rewarded with just silence.  Eli strolled over to say hello and there wasn’t a sound.  Finally (and this was very mean of me), I used Frank as bait and took him with me to where Cricket could see him.  We then got two barks out of her—one translated to say she was “frustrated”, which I think was appropriate given that she was barking at a cat outside the bedroom, a cat she wants to play with.  The second bark was again in the frustration category, and translated to say, “I’ll be good”.  As Cricket always wants to play with Frank, and Frank will have nothing to do with Cricket, I think both translations were certainly believable.

Ultimately though, I think the BowLingual is nothing more than a dog silencer!  I think it sends out a signal to paralyze the dog’s vocal cords so they can’t make a sound.  I’ll continue to experiment and see if I can really put the unit through its paces, and I really want to put it on Eli before I play with her with the hose.  She loves/hates the hose and it always makes her bark up a storm.  Hopefully Bow Lingual will really tell me whether is it “love” or “hate”.

Oh, the manufacturer, Takara, made a Meow-Lingual model for cats, but I guess it never took off as it didn’t hit the US market.  I’ve looked for them on eBay, but only found one, once, on eBay Japan.  As the unit was in Japanese and not English, the translations wouldn’t have been very helpful for me!  Takara currently has a “Purr Indicator” product for cats, but it’s more of a “feel-good” product than an actual learning device.  If you’re interested, it might be a cute gift for a cat lover, though:  Purrfect Mood Detector

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/23 at 06:58 AM

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

  1. I have had my eye on this gizmo since it was first introduced too!  I am anxiously awaiting the results of your experiment.  Hopefully your test subjects will cooperate!  :)

    Posted by Expat  on  08/23  at  11:19 PM

  2. If you’re feeling lucky, I’ll give a Bowlingual away in my contest next month—a book plus a Bow-lingual.  I think the device has merit, and I definitely want to keep experimenting with it.

    Btw, the reason I mix up the spelling of the product isn’t because I have MPD—I’m just trying to cover all the different spellings that people enter into search engines.  I hate when I can’t find something because it has a number of varied spellings, so figure I’ll try to cover all the bases.

    Posted by Mudpuppy (aka Leigh-Ann)  on  08/24  at  01:03 AM

  3. Good thinking with those spelling variations!  I have found that more and more, I rely on blogs for opinions when it comes to products and services.  You definitely can not beat the honesty that you find on (non-spam) blogs.

    Ooooh a Bowlingual contest sounds exciting!  I am intrigued by your current contest as well.  I would love to go and see the film version of the book!  It is coming to town in September.  :-)

    Posted by Expat  on  08/25  at  12:37 AM

  4. Do go see the movie if you have a chance—we really enjoyed it!  Mark is such a nice guy, and getting to know him in San Francisco was so good for my morale at the time.  I was in the midst of so many life-changes and new directions, and there was something about the parrots which I found really settling and calming.

    As for the contest, enter it!  That’s what it’s there for.  The odds of winning are really good, as I have all of three entrants :)

    Posted by Mudpuppy (aka Leigh-Ann)  on  08/25  at  06:34 AM

  5. Don’t waste your money unless you are buying this as a joke gift. Becaue it is only a toy! This isn’t a computer that reads reactions by your dog. It is full of pre programmed messages. The health feature   is also a phony sales tool. The information is very common, such as if your dog nose is cold. I bought it at the 55$ price rang if you can get it for 10$, then it is worth the joke. By the way I tried to call the company and the number was busy for four days straight.

    Posted by Scott Graham  on  01/11  at  05:30 PM

  6. I didn’t think the company even existed anymore, except in Japan (which is perhaps why they didn’t answer the phone!).  I agree that it’s not a diagnostic tool, but thought there was some accuracy to the “bark interpretations” it made, and it was kind of fun.  I wouldn’t have wanted to spend more than $25 or so on it, though—I paid $10 when Amazon was clearing them out.

    Posted by Leigh-Ann  on  01/12  at  07:34 AM
    7. Page 1 of 1 pages
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.

Next entry: Stock tips from someone who knows nothing

Previous entry: It wasn't poop *or* vomit!

<< Back to main